In a recent comment, “Vito” wondered why I haven’t posted anything about the Broadway Triangle contretemps (or near riot, as Vito put it) at last week’s CB1 meeting. A fair question. I’m not pretending like nothing happened, I just haven’t posted much of anything in the past week – the result of a busy week at work and long weekend away.

To commenter John and others who have not been playing along at home, the Broadway Triangle is a long-simmering proposal to rezone a portion of the neighborhood north of Flushing and west of Broadway. Local community groups representing a broad array of residents have worked with HPD to put together a rezoning plan. Other local community groups (which were not allowed a role in the process) representing a broad array of residents oppose this plan and have a plan (or plans) of their own. The latter group showed up in force (50 by the Observer’s count, over 100 by the Courier’s count) at last week’s CB1 meeting and shouted down the presentation being made by the City. The goal of the protest, according to one organizer, was to “shut [the hearing] down” – which to a great measure it did. Its a questionable tactic in my mind, as the process already began a month ago when City Planning certified the rezoning, and “shutting down” the presentation last Tuesday would do nothing to derail the ULURP train. The real result of all the shouting is that most members of the Community Board, who ultimately will have to vote on the City’s proposal, don’t know what the City’s plan is or what the opposition’s plan is.

3 Comments

I am disappointed that your very credible site presents such a vapid explanation for the tensions surrounding the rezoning of the Broadway Triangle.
The Assemblyman, through his Not-For-Profit facade, in alliance with UJO and with the support of the City, intends to expand his footprint to control the development of low-income housing in the Broadway Triangle as a vehicle for expanding his political power and suffocating our local CBO’s, which do not require political loyalty from their tenants, but offer resistance to his tremendous appetite for control.
There is a enormous amount of fear surrounding and confusing any discussion of this issue because of the vicious tactics used by the Assemblyman to undermine his opponents. If your idea of the future includes further empowering this nasty bully, or if you truly think it makes no difference who controls the future of the Broadway Triangle, I beg you to investigate further, penetrate the facade that intimidation has created, and find out why people are shouting and trying to shut down the process.
It really does matter and they could really use your support.

I was going more for neutral than vapid.
There’s a lot of politics on both sides of this, which I’m sure will come out again tomorrow evening. But for a lot of board members and community members, the first they knew of Broadway Triangle was from the Board meeting earlier this month (the “near riot”). Unfortunately, after that evening all any of those people really know is that there are a lot of people angry about the BT rezoning. They don’t know why those people were angry, and because of all of the shouting, they don’t know what the City’s plan is. Nor, for that matter, do most people know what the Coalition’s alternative is.
My intention (at the moment) was to provide some material via links that would let people start to understand what all the hubbub is.
(And your comments and commentary are welcome – I think it is important for people to hear all sides on this. People would like to understand the issues here – both land use and political – without all the shouting.)